When James Harden entered the NBA in 2009, the league’s highest-paid player, Kobe Bryant, made just over $23m a year. Now, there are 50 players making more than that sum, and the highest-paid among them, Steph Curry, will make a hair over $48m in 2022-23.
But when Harden declined his player-option of $47.3m next season to sign a new two-year contract (with a player-option in Year 2) worth $68.6m that will see him take a $14m discount next year, he became the first star player to take a pay cut of that magnitude in the modern history of the league. After all, this isn’t Dirk Nowitzki taking a team-friendly deal at 39-years-old or Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh losing out on a couple million in the prime of their careers. Harden took a big pay cut with the aim of helping his Philadelphia 76ers build a championship contender around himself and co-star Joel Embiid, reportedly telling Sixers’ president of basketball operations Daryl Morey “to improve the roster, sign who we needed to sign and give me whatever is left over.”
